Nvidia Made $289 Million from Cryptocurrency Mining in Q1

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Nvidia, the world’s largest GPU Manufacturer, posted their earnings call for the first quarter and reported revenue of $3.21 Billion, which was more than the estimates of $2.89 Billion. According to the report, the company made $289 Million — 9% of their total revenue — from sales to cryptocurrency miners.

Nvidia expected to make $200 Million through cryptocurrency sales but made nearly 50% more. Though their crypto sales has outperformed their expectations, they expect it to come down in the coming months. With ethereum being the most popular cryptocurrency being mined on GPUs, Bitmain is expected to take a significant portion of chip-related market share when the Antminer E3 launches later this year.

In fact, Bitmain reported more revenue last year than Nvidia, whose product line also includes components for cloud computing and AI. Nvidia reported $3 Billion in operating profit for the year, while Bitmain made nearly $4 Billion selling ASIC miners.

Though Nvidia might not have the revenue of Bitmain, they made more crypto hardware sales than their GPU rival AMD. AMD reported first-quarter revenue of $1.65 Billion out of which 10% was crypto sales, indicating they made only $165 Million. Like Nvidia, AMD also expects mining revenue to decline in the coming days.

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, explained:

“The reason why they bought [GPU cards] is for gaming, but while they are not gaming; while they are at school, at work, or in bed — they will turn it on and do a little mining. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

When the demand for consumer GPUs for cryptocurrency mining shot through the roof, Nvidia tried controlling the sales and ultimately failed. In some markets, retailers sell these graphics cards for as much as twice their actual cost because of the demand. However, the firm appears to have finally come to terms with cryptocurrencies, and the upcoming ASIC Miner from Bitmain might finally free up their supply constraints.